Send e-mail to letters@gainesvilletimes.com (no attached files, please, which can contain viruses); fax to 770-532-0457; or mail to The Times, P.O. Box 838, Gainesville, GA 30503. Include full name, hometown and phone number for confirmation. They should be limited to one topic on issues of public interest and may be edited for content and length (limit of 500 words). Letters forwarded from other sources or those involving personal, business or legal disputes, poetry, expressions of faith or memorial tributes may be rejected. You may be limited to one letter per month, two on a single topic. Submitted items may be published in print, electronic or other forms. Letters, columns and cartoons express the opinions of the authors and not of The Times editorial board.
Hall County, in its never-ending efforts to develop and grow into an Atlanta suburb, appears to be hellbent on impounding every available free flowing stream to provide the water necessary to do so.
State legislators appear to have a similar desire to keep feeding the growth monster. The current controversy over possible future reduction in water allocation from Lake Lanier has fanned the dam building flames even further, resulting in some media statements that are misleading.
The proposed Glades Reservoir is a good example. The county condemned enough private land from the owners to build an 800-plus-acre water supply lake and enough additional land for major developments. The articles I’ve read imply that this lake will produce an additional 6 million gallons of water a day for Gainesville or Hall County consumption.
These articles are misleading because every drop of water from this drainage already flows directly into Lake Lanier! Water intercepted to fill this lake will simply be that much less water that flows into Lake Lanier to bring it to full pool.
If Lake Lanier were likely to stay at full pool, the additional storage could be used during selected periods to maintain lake level; however, the amount of water a reservoir of this size could store would be insignificant for such use. If Lake Lanier stays below full pool (a fair likelihood based upon recent history), then we are spending many millions of dollars simply to build a reservoir (or reservoirs) to rob water from Lake Lanier, rather than maintaining levels in the main lake.
Regardless of whether the Glades Reservoir is used to maintain Lake Lanier levels by releasing the water back into the lake or piped directly to a treatment plant, there is no net gain of water. In fact, evaporation alone will ensure a net water loss.
Either scenario appears to be a shell game to get around the Army Corps of Engineers’ or EPD’s allocation for water supply. The net result will likely be lower lake levels and ever-increasing restrictions on water use.
Monte E. Seehorn
Gainesville
Democrats’ health care proposal is dangerous
Do you laugh out loud when a leftist columnist says that careful people who oppose Barack Obama’s policies are "racist?" I do. It is so predictable that it reminds me of Grandma’s cuckoo clock.
Do you smile every time you read a leftist column that is filled with name-calling, but no data? I do. It is so predictable.
When it comes to "health care reform," however, I do not laugh. What the Democrats propose is deadly dangerous, both to your health and to our nation.
Here are data from HR 3200, from the Liberty Counsel Web site and others:
Page 16: Keep your existing health care policy if you wish, but if anything at all changes (like copays, etc.) you must then join the government-provided insurance because no new policies can be issued.
Page 30: A government committee will decide what benefits and care you get.
Page 42: The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you.
Page 58-59: Government insurance will have direct real-time access to your bank account for electronic funds transfer.
This goes on for a thousand pages. It includes the obvious, like this:
Page 769: GPI abortion.
It also includes some non-obvious things, like this:
Page 897: The government will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps to assure adequate staffing for health care. Does that mean doctors will be drafted into this PHWC? Who knows?
Also 897: The PHWC will include veterinarians.
Do not let Democrats say, don’t worry, this is not the final bill. You can be sure that if something passes, it will be full of stuff like this. No wonder careful people oppose everything about this kind of governmental control. It must be stopped. Period.
Then restart with real reform, like portable health insurance policies, vouchers or tax credits for lower income people who need help getting insurance for catastrophic care, and tort reform.
The Democrats propose the end of free choice in America. That, I think, is un-American. What do you think?
WT "Ted" Hinds
Gainesville
Columnist should find reason in his argument
On Thursday, in an article by Harold Lott "Many appeal to emotion, not reason, in health debate," he says that to understand what’s happening we must see through facades such as our political and liberal-conservative preferences.
Then, in his typical illogic, he proceeds to criticize Republicans in paragraphs 2, 3, 6, seven, 14 and 15. However, to be even-handed, he also raises racism as an issue in paragraph 8.
Then he says, in paragraph 3, that government control of heath care is not socialistic. I wonder just what Mr. Lott thinks is socialistic if government control of banks, of the automobile industry and of the health industry in this country is not socialism?
Rather than trite and irresponsible accusations, Mr. Lott should present fact-based arguments in favor of the medical care bills now before Congress, if he has read any of them. I have, and, as a senior citizen, there are many parts which are objectionable, and they have nothing to do with political preferences, racism, or the phase of the moon.
As Mr. Lott said, (but didn’t): "Let’s get real."
Byrd Smith
Gainesville